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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24016237">take a dirty picture, babe (i can't sleep and i miss your face)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly'>pentaghastly</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, F/M, Roommates, and they were roommates (oh my god they were roommates), gendrya is there but it's background u know, this is friends to strangers to roommates to one night stand to friends to pining to lovers, we stan relationships that go in the wrong order babey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:00:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,696</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24016237</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven years. Seven years of heartbreak, imploding, exploding, and desperately trying to piece herself back together again.</p>
<p>Seven years, and Theon Greyjoy hasn’t changed.</p>
<p>It’s strange, but somehow that comes as a relief.</p>
<p>(<em>sansa and theon, a love story in reverse</em>)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Minor or Background Relationship(s), Robb Stark/Margaery Tyrell, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>190</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>take a dirty picture, babe (i can't sleep and i miss your face)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is not proof-read at all. please promise to love me anyway.</p>
<p>i'll stop writing these nerds when im cold in my grave babeyyyyy</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h2>End of side A. Please turn over.</h2>
<p>.</p>
<p>Sometimes Sansa wonders if she was born backwards.</p>
<p>Not physically backwards, obviously, but—well. You know. Backwards. In reverse.</p>
<p>She’s a grown-up before she’s old enough to walk to the store on her own. There’s this feeling, a curling deep in her gut, and at night when she lies in bed it comes to tells her that she’s a bit too big for her body. She goes to church every Sunday with her mother, helps her father fix the car on the weekends, takes Bran to his physio appointments, teaches Rickon how to read, and gives Arya a horrendous-but-cool green dye job in the bathroom tub. She watches Robb go to university and Jon become a police officer, and all the while Sansa remains rooted where she stands.</p>
<p>Sansa doesn’t really feel the sands of time shift because she feels as though she’s been here—just…<em>here</em> from the moment she had any spatial awareness whatsoever. </p>
<p>Nothing feels right. Nothing seems to fit. Her therapist calls this <em>clinical depression</em>, writes her a prescription that they both know Sansa is never going to fill, and tells her that she can’t go on living the rest of her life feeling as though she doesn’t fit into what is ostensibly <em>her</em> life. It’s kind of terrible advice, but she thinks that she gets it.</p>
<p>She packs her bags at two in the morning, and tells her mother she’s going South to work on the thing that she’s passionate about.</p>
<p>Her mother asks her what it is, and Sansa tells her the truth:</p>
<p>She hasn’t got the slightest fucking idea.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And that’s how it happens, basically.</p>
<p>There’s a little bit more in the middle. There’s abusive boyfriends, drawing classes, painting classes, shitty bosses, and more than one night spent sobbing into a wine glass. There’s a woman named Margaery with twinkling eyes who says Sansa has <em>real fucking potential</em>, which leads to an internship at a tattoo parlor, which leads to Sansa feeling as though she might have a purpose for the first time in her life.</p>
<p>Sansa left home at eighteen, and she comes back at twenty-five with the keys to a business and a whole fuck-load of emotional damage that she doesn’t really know how to quantify. The prescription is still tucked in the pocket of a coat in the back of her closet, long-past expired.</p>
<p>She comes home and Margaery comes with her, a shiny pair of shop keys hanging from a chain that just might be encrusted with real diamonds.</p>
<p>She comes home after seven years.</p>
<p>Which, as it turns out, is a really long time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I can’t move back in with Mum and Dad. I mean—God, you <em>know</em> how much I love them.” </p>
<p>“I know you do,” Arya nods, sounding far too confident for someone who Sansa can tell isn’t listening. </p>
<p>“I <em>do</em>.”</p>
<p>“And I said I <em>know</em>, Sans, Jesus. No one thinks otherwise.”</p>
<p>But her mother does, Sansa thinks. She’s sure of it. Catelyn would never say as much out loud because she’s Catelyn Stark, thin-lipped and iron-spined, a woman of principle who would never throw such a horrendous accusation towards her daughter. Never out loud.</p>
<p>Instead she offers terse silences, phone calls filled with clipped comments that aren’t quite insults but clearly meant to incite something other than mother-daughter affection. Sansa hears it in the tone of her voice. It’s something that she’s heard every day since she left, the sound somehow only becoming more bitter with its familiarity: <em>resentment</em>. Betrayal.</p>
<p>Seven years…seven years is a long fucking time.</p>
<p>“I’d offer for you to move in with Gendry and I, but,” Arya reaches forward as she speaks, snatching a chip off of Sansa’s plate without a moment of hesitation—perhaps absence really does make the heart grow fonder, because she doesn’t even feel all too angry about it, “fuck knows there’s barely enough room for the two of us as it is. And, no offense, but sharing a studio apartment with my sister would make sex really fucking awkward.”</p>
<p>Sansa snorts. The sound is ugly, ugly enough that a few years ago she’d never dare allow it to slip out in public. She’s almost proud of herself for it, this insignificant mark of growth. </p>
<p>“Do you ever take a moment to think about the things that come out of your mouth?” she asks, and when Arya replies, “No<em>pe</em>,” she offers such a cartoonish waggle of her eyebrows that Sansa finds herself laughing again, the sound slipping out of her in a bubble of shock and affection. </p>
<p>She loves her sister. She <em>loves</em> her, so shouldn’t their mother be happy that she left? If she’d stayed in Winterfell, if she’d sat and stagnated and suffocated, then she wouldn’t have ever felt the swell of affection that she feels now. They’re sitting on a grease stained bench in the corner of an overly-lit fast food restaurant and somehow the only thing that Sansa is feeling is an urge to wrap her sister in a suffocating hug.</p>
<p>“You can’t sleep on Margaery’s couch forever, Sansa. No matter how stupid expensive and comfortable it is.” </p>
<p>Sansa jabs her fry in the ketchup like a knife, overly-aggressive, using the movement to punctuate her words. “That’s the worst part, though. I was with her when she bought it, Arya. Twelve thousand pounds, and it feels like I’m sleeping on the sidewalk.” </p>
<p>“<em>Jesus</em>, roll out the fucking guillotine.” Quite frankly, Sansa’s not even certain that’s a joke. She never really knows with Arya anymore. “What about Jeyne?” </p>
<p>“Knocked up. Spare room’s going to the baby.”</p>
<p>“Aunt Lysa?” </p>
<p>“<em>Ew</em>. Serious suggestions only, Arya.” </p>
<p>They sit in silence for a few minutes, and then a few minutes more. Sansa spends these minutes contemplating her theory, thinking about how she’s crawling on all fours in the opposite direction of where she’s meant to be going. She’s twenty-five and homeless, basically, with a new business but no other prospects or aspirations to speak of, with practically no money to her name. Sansa Stark, twenty-five and collapsing in on herself, moving at break-neck speed towards nothing.</p>
<p>“I mean…” Arya says, although she doesn’t even sound so much like she <em>wants</em> to be saying it. “Jon and Ygritte did just move in together.”</p>
<p>“Only now?” The words sound sarcastic but the shock Sansa is feeling is genuine. “God. Took him long enough.”</p>
<p>“So Robb and Theon have an extra room. A big one, too.”</p>
<p>There’s a punchline coming.</p>
<p>Sansa’s sure of it.</p>
<p>“It’s got a walk-in closet.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sansa Stark, twenty-five and sparkling, moving into her big brother’s spare room.</p>
<p>Now <em>that’s</em> a punchline.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Robb, as it turns out, has become a much better person to live with now that he’s twenty-seven than he was when he was eighteen.</p>
<p>He folds his clothes. He empties the dishwasher. When Sansa says ‘<em>Can you please turn the volume down a bit, Robb, I know</em> Die Hard<em> is a very good movie but is a volume level of fifty really necessary?</em>’ he complies with very little complaint. He’s grown, he really has, and Sansa would be lying if she said she wasn’t exceptionally proud of her big brother and his foray from childish child to childish adult.</p>
<p>Theon, on the other hand…</p>
<p>In Theon’s defense, it’s not like she expected anything more of him.</p>
<p>When they see each other for the first time in seven years, it goes like this:</p>
<p>She opens the door to what is now officially Her Bedroom, a space that’s about the same size as Arya and Gendry’s whole flat, and the only thing she wants to do is unpack the paltry amount of belongings that she’d lugged back with her from King’s Landing. She’s wearing a spaghetti-strap dress but the straps keep slipping off her shoulder and she’d got a sunburn after a grand total of five minutes outside yesterday so her mood is—it’s subpar to say the least, and thus she’s really not in the mood for any douchebag-related shenanigans. </p>
<p>So when she opens the door to what is now her space—yes, <em>her</em> space—the last thing she expects to see is a shirtless Theon Greyjoy staring at himself in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror across from her bed.</p>
<p>He doesn’t even hesitate when she walks into the room. </p>
<p>He doesn’t even <em>flinch</em>.</p>
<p>“Hey Sans,” he says, as though this is anything close to normal, “is your shop going to do Friends and Family Slash Roommate discounts? Because I’ve got this idea for a kraken piece that I want to get right above my—”</p>
<p>“<em>Theon</em>!” she snaps, painfully aware of the warmth that rises from her sternum up to her brow. “You can’t…you can’t <em>do</em> this! How would you feel if you walked into your bedroom and I was there, shirtless and talking about my—Jesus, don’t give me that fucking face, you know what I mean. Get out! And put a shirt on!”</p>
<p>“Don’t act like you’re not impressed, Sans!” he calls out after her, after she’s stormed out of the room and slammed the door shut. His voice is muffled, but still somehow painfully clear. “I went to the gym last month, I know how good I look!”</p>
<p>He does put a shirt on, actually. At least she can give him that much.</p>
<p>Sansa has always had a soft spot for Theon. Everyone in their family does, but when they were children she had been especially fond of him in the way that you were fond of a particularly sad looking junkyard dog. He’d aroused a sense of pity in her that not many people could, particularly not people who seemed determined to make themselves as unlikeable as possible. And he’d always been kind to her in his own way, which is really the only reason why moving in with him didn’t seem like it would be an utter disaster. In theory.</p>
<p>In practice, it’s a little bit different.</p>
<p>At the end of the night on her first day she says, “I need to have a shower,” and Theon yells, “<em>Aha!</em> Race you!”, which results in him hip-checking her out of the way and slamming the bathroom door in her face, Robb laughing so hard that he snorts water out of his nose.</p>
<p>On her second day, first official morning, she walks into the kitchen to find him drinking milk directly out of the carton.</p>
<p>“It was about to expire,” he says, as if this makes it any better.</p>
<p>“So you had to drink it all?”</p>
<p>“What else would I do? Pour it down the sink?” He scoffs, giving her a look as if <em>she’s</em> the crazy one, as if he’s just walked in on her half-naked chugging milk like a madwoman. “Settle down, Miss. Moneybags.”</p>
<p>“Theon, that—you’re going to have to buy new milk anyways. Drinking it all at once doesn’t save you any money, it’ll just make you ill.”</p>
<p>He shrugs.</p>
<p>“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”</p>
<p>(And, of course, he vomits in the sink five minutes later.)</p>
<p>He’s just…Theon. He’s stupid and impulsive, impossibly annoying. He knocks on her door at three in the morning asking if she still likes strawberries on her waffles, and there’s a freshly-prepared plate waiting for her on the kitchen table five hours later. There’s a bottle of rum in the liquor cabinet labeled <em>Theon’s Only: Do Not Touch, Robb, You Thieving Little Shit</em>. He waters the plants with impressive regularity, only shrugging his shoulders when Sansa politely informs him that they’re plastic.</p>
<p>“Even plastic things deserve a little bit of love, Sansa,” he informs her, as if this explains everything rather than absolutely nothing at all.</p>
<p>They’re not friends. They’re barely even acquaintances, and realistically they should be perfect fucking strangers. They should be, except Theon grins at her from across the couch and flicks a crumpled up piece of paper at her forehead and it feels as though they’re…well, she’s not quite sure, but it feels as though they’re definitely something. </p>
<p>Seven years. Seven years of heartbreak, imploding, exploding, and desperately trying to piece herself back together again.</p>
<p>Seven years, and Theon Greyjoy hasn’t changed.</p>
<p>It’s strange, but somehow that comes as a relief.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<h2>@winterrosetattoo </h2>
<p><strong>Winter Rose Tattoo Shop</strong><br/><em>tattoo parlor</em><br/>Winterfell. Run by @sansasstark and @margaerytyrell. Opening soon! Sign up for our mailing list at <span class="u">winterrosetattoo.com.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Theon knocks on her door at twelve fifty-two am on her fourth day in the flat.</p>
<p>She opens up to his uncharacteristically earnest expression, and he says, “Robb told me I was being an asshole,” without allowing her a moment to snap at him for waking her up.</p>
<p>“And this is noteworthy because…?”</p>
<p>He laughs, a little bit surprised, and Sansa feels the slightest bit guilty that he’d come to her door prepared to get yelled at. She <em>was</em> going to yell at him, obviously, but that doesn’t mean that she’s happy about the fact that he’s come to expect that form her. Sansa would like to be something other than the Uptight Female Roommate, the one in all of the sitcoms that you’re clearly supposed to kind of hate. She hates the thought of fitting into a neat, misogynistic little box.</p>
<p>“We’re really happy you’re here, Sansa. Robb especially,” which is obvious based on the five hundred times that her brother has told her as much since she moved in, but he’s said <em>we</em>, which is quite new on its own. “I know I seem like an immature prick most of the time—” </p>
<p>“All of the time, but continue.” </p>
<p>Theon, bless his heart, does as he’s told. “Okay, <em>all</em> of the time. But I’m only an immature dick around people that I care about, so. You know.” He shuffles from his left foot to his right, a trail of pink spreading from his cheeks to his chest to…to a lot lower than Sansa should be looking, far below the collar of the tight white t-shirt that he’s wearing to bed. “I’m just saying that I hope you stick around, so if I’m ever being a little too much like myself just let me know.”</p>
<p>There are a million and one things that she could say in that moment, but none of them really feel like enough.</p>
<p>“Theon?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, Sans?”</p>
<p>“Waking me up in the middle of the night to talk about you…that’s way, <em>way</em> too much like yourself.”</p>
<p>He blinks.</p>
<p>She grins.</p>
<p>And, okay—</p>
<p>Maybe Theon’s changed a little bit after all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Robb goes on a lot—a <em>lot</em>—of Tinder dates.</p>
<p>When she’d left he’d still been with Jeyne Westerling, a committed man through and through who would hardly even look at another woman twice. They’d been looking at wedding venues by the time that they were eighteen; Robb would sit there and talk about what it would be like to raise <em>their children</em> and Sansa had been horrified, not so much for him but because they were only two and a half years apart in age and his vast levels of confidence in his future was making her question her own fifteen times more.</p>
<p>It’s almost a relief to see him flounder. It’s almost soothing to watch as the Great King Robb desperately asks Theon which looks better, having his shirt all-the-way tucked or just a little bit at the front like that one guy on the show always tells people to do. It’s <em>almost</em> amazing.</p>
<p>Almost.</p>
<p>On Sansa’s first Saturday since moving in, once Robb has left for his second Tinder date in the six days that she’s been living with him, Theon turns to her with a conspiratorial grin.</p>
<p> “Got any big plans?”</p>
<p>She snorts. “You know perfectly well that I don’t, Theon.” </p>
<p>He approaches her, getting a little too close into her personal space—so close that she can make out the dark circles under his eyes, the tiny remnants of a scar through his left upper lip from when he’d landed on his face after trying to do a skateboard trick that he could ‘<em> totally pull off, just fucking watch me you pricks.</em>’ He’s right in her personal space, and he’s grinning like a child.</p>
<p>“You do now.”</p>
<p>Which is how she ends up at a dive bar with Theon Greyjoy at nine-thirty pm, when the only other people there are a handful of tipsy young girls in too-tight dresses and drunken regulars.</p>
<p>“Theon,” Sansa whispers, trying not to sound as panicked as she is, “when you told me we were going out to celebrate, I didn’t think you meant—” </p>
<p>“The best pub in the city? Can’t blame you for underestimating me, but years of sweat and blood have made this place a thing of beauty.”</p>
<p>She blinks. “You mean…?”</p>
<p>He nods. “I mean. Uncle Euron used to own it, but he died in a completely gruesome watersports accident—seriously, don’t ask—so yours truly got the keys. Well, along with—” </p>
<p>It’s then that Yara Greyjoy appears at the bar, still very beautiful and very smug, although she’s looking at her brother with far more affection than Sansa’s ever witnessed between the two of them. “Sansa Stark, as I live and breathe.  I honestly thought this one was fucking with me when he said that you were back.” She places a glass in front of her and smiles, the expression only vaguely intimidating. “You’re drinking on the house tonight, love.” </p>
<p>And suddenly the name <em>The Kraken’s Den</em> makes much more sense.</p>
<p>Theon orders her a lemon drop, and Sansa hates herself for being so predictable but also hates the fact that she hadn’t put two and two together sooner—she’d never really thought about what Theon did to be able to afford his third of the rent in a downtown Winterfell flat, but Robb had called him a <em>business owner</em> and she’d just automatically assumed it was another hairbrained idea with five drunken ‘potential investors’that never really led anywhere at all.</p>
<p>He owns a bar. A bar that’s a bit dingy, that has sticky spots on the counters and a couple of lightbulbs that are burnt out, but a bar that’s clearly thriving in its own sort of way. She sees the fliers on the walls—live music on Fridays, trivia nights on Wednesdays—and sees the people <em>slowly</em> starting to trickle in (it is still early, after all) and suddenly feels very ashamed of the fact that she’d ever for a moment doubted him.</p>
<p>“Theon Greyjoy,” she says. “Theon Greyjoy, Businessman.”</p>
<p>He grins, cheeky, all-too-pleased. “Can you fucking believe it?” </p>
<p>“I can.” Sansa knows she sounds a little too solemn, but she means it. “I absolutely can.”</p>
<p>The shock on his face is a little bit heartbreaking, honestly. He starts fidgeting—he starts twisting the ring on his middle finger, left to right, and it might have been seven years but Sansa still knows Theon well enough to know what this means. </p>
<p>He’s <em>thinking</em>, a crease forming on his brow as he plans out his answer. No matter how it seems, everything word that Theon says is chosen with care. There’s a delicate art to his specific breed of nonchalance, and she’s certain that right now he’s trying to figure out a way to brush aside her compliment and make an inappropriate joke in order to shatter the atmosphere of sincerity all together.</p>
<p>Yara places the drink right next to Sansa’s left hand just as Theon says, “I can take you to the back office later tonight if you’d like. The door locks, so it’s nice and <em>private</em>,” and both women groan simultaneously.</p>
<p>“God,” she laughs, “God, you’re so consistent.” </p>
<p>He holds his beer out towards her and Sansa clinks her drink carefully against his own, watching the pale yellow liquid <em>swish</em> and leave small granules of sugar against the side. She watches as Theon’s bicep twitches, watches the bob of his Adam’s apple, watches the clench of his jaw, and tries to think about anything other than how snug his shirt fits around his arm or how one perfect curl of his inky black hair dangles right in front of his eyes, so effortlessly perfect that it’s generally a bit infuriating.</p>
<p>“Sansa Stark,” he begins. “Sweet Sansa. You’ve been away for thirty-five very long years—”</p>
<p>“Seven,” she interjects.</p>
<p>“And after thirty five years,” Theon continues, completely unbothered, “you’re opening a tattoo shop of your own. Which is a huge accomplishment, despite the rather odd fact that you apparently don’t give discounts to roommates-slash-best friends—”</p>
<p>“You’re not my best friend, Theon.”</p>
<p>“So I just want to say that we’re all very proud of you.” The seriousness in his voice doesn’t sound like a joke anymore. It sounds…<em>serious</em>, so the sarcastic response dies in her throat and Sansa listens with bated breath. “Not that it’s a surprise, really. If any of us were going to be a massive, impressive sort of success, it was always going to be you. Although, you know, I think I speak for all of us when I say that I’m glad you’re doing it here.”</p>
<p>The silence is heavy, so heavy that Sansa finishes off the remainder of her drink to allow her a moment of thought before she’s forced to fill it. There are so, <em>so</em> many things that she could say, things that are too genuine and too emotional for the shitty lighting of the bar and the shell-pink of her lipstick that smudged up at the edges of her mouth.</p>
<p>“You’re still not getting a free tattoo,” she tells him, and hopes that the fondness in her voice says enough.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She wakes up the next morning with a hangover, a purple splotch on her collarbone, and a naked Theon Greyjoy in her bed.</p>
<p>So…</p>
<p>So maybe her voice had said a little too much.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Robb can <em>not</em> find out.”</p>
<p>They’re both pale. Exhausted. Whether that’s from the drinks last night (far too many) or the…<em>activities</em> they had taken part in after Sansa’s not entirely sure, but she knows that neither of them are exactly looking their best. The swirling of guilt likely isn’t helping much either, because even though Sansa doesn’t regret the night before—she’s absolutely positive that she’d wanted it—she knows that it would give Robb a conniption.</p>
<p>And she also knows that there’s a sort of unspoken rule for living with someone that you’re not in a relationship with at the time of said living arrangement, and that rule is very clear:</p>
<p>Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Sleep With Your Roommate.</p>
<p>She hadn’t even been able to last a week.</p>
<p>“I’m sure as fuck not going to tell him, Sans.” Theon takes a sip of his coffee, the one that she’d made him after she’d scrambled out of bed in a panic. Three sugars and a splash of coconut creamer, the same way he’d taken it after an all-night session studying at the Stark household in high school. “I know you’re a shit liar, but can you do your best to act normal when he gets home?”</p>
<p>“I’m—I am <em>not</em> a shit liar!”</p>
<p>Theon doesn’t say anything in response, just levels her with a <em>look</em> that absolutely does not send a shiver down her spine and turns around, back to the cabinets to grab another coffee pod. He reaches up towards the highest shelves and Sansa internally echoes his previous sentiment: thank <em>fuck</em> Robb stayed out with his date last night, disgusting as the thought is.</p>
<p>Because she knows that he’d notice the slight shiver that runs down her spine, the way that she bites her lip when Theon’s shirt lifts up just a bit and reveals the slight curve of his lower abdomen—she’d kissed a line across that spot last night, and suddenly the patch of her collarbone starts to burn again, a wave of heat that starts just above her heart and spreads throughout her body like wildfire. She doesn’t even have a choice; she’s in the middle of wanting him before she’s even aware that she’s begun.</p>
<p>He’s not looking at her, focused on his drink, but his left cheek dimples with a grin. “See something you like, Stark?” he asks, and Sansa looks towards the clock.</p>
<p>Eight forty-five in the morning.</p>
<p>Robb never wakes up before noon on Saturdays, no matter what bed he’s sleeping in.</p>
<p>“That depends,” Sansa says, because she’s twenty-five and blossoming, feeling fucking incandescent. “Can you come into my bedroom? The lighting’s better in there, and I think I need a closer look.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Robb throws the door open at twelve-thirty one, and if he notices the flush on his sister’s cheeks or the way his best friend’s hair is sticking up in every direction he doesn’t say a word.</p>
<p>“I’ve met her!” he declares, arms spread wide. “I’ve met <em>the one</em>!”</p>
<p>And it’s awful, but a traitorous part of Sansa’s mind can’t help but wonder when it’ll all come crashing down.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<h2>@sanssastark</h2>
<p><strong>sansa.</strong><br/>2-5. northern rose. no, I won’t give you a free tattoo.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They have a routine.</p>
<p><em>Not</em> the sex. That’s a one-time anomaly, one that’s never to be repeated. Sansa and Theon never agree on as much out loud but she’s sure that they don’t have to; she never mentions it and he doesn’t either, instead talking loudly about girls who come into the bar and girls who slide into his inbox on Twitter so it’s refreshing, really, to finally have an encounter with a man who doesn’t think that putting his hands on her once automatically bestows him ownership of her person.</p>
<p>The routine that the put together is much more simple and involves her brother, which takes any potential for romance and immediately throws it out the window.</p>
<p>Thank <em>Gods</em> for that.</p>
<p>Sansa wakes up promptly at five forty-five in the morning and prepares breakfast for the flat, along with coffee for Theon and tea for Robb. She leaves for work, and when she comes home dinner is made—officially by either of the boys, although she knows that when it’s Robb’s turn he’s usually just following the strict directions that Theon gives him.</p>
<p>They watch television in the evening, usually something stupid and mindless that Sansa can fall asleep in the middle of without feeling as though she’s missing half of the plot. Robb sits in his chair—<em>His</em> chair and his alone, a fact that Sansa learns rather quickly. </p>
<p>Theon sits next to her on the couch and he places his head on her shoulder, or in her lap, and Sansa threads absent-minded fingers through his hair.</p>
<p>(“He’s like a cat,” Robb says, noting the horror on her face when Theon does so the first time.</p>
<p>“I need constant affection to live,” Theon confirms.</p>
<p>She thinks that it would be disgusting if it wasn’t so damn cute.)</p>
<p>So it’s a routine. It’s the sort of routine that adults have, and it’s not much but it’s more than Sansa had a year previous—more than she’s ever had, really, so isn’t that saying something?</p>
<p>And Sansa does her very best not to think about the way that Theon had groaned when she bit her lip, tries not to think about the noise that she’d drawn out of him when she’d crossed her legs around his back and pulled him as close to her as she could, close enough that she swore she could feel the thundering of his heart against her chest.</p>
<p>It’s just…</p>
<p>It’s a very nice apartment.</p>
<p>She doesn’t want to fuck it up quite yet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sixteen Candles.”</p>
<p>“<em>Wrong!</em> Gods, it’s like you don’t even know me.”</p>
<p>He frowns. “No, no. I specifically remember Middle School Sansa saying that Jake Ryan had a—and this is a direct quote—‘<em>smoulder that melted her heart into a puddle</em>.’”</p>
<p>“You’re missing the second part of that quote.” If anything Theon just looks more confused, so Sansa knocks back another sip of her drink and continues. “If you were actually paying attention, you’d remember that while Jake Ryan has a killer smoulder, he also happens to have the emotional presence—”</p>
<p>“Of a half-mashed potato. <em>Fuck</em>, how could I have forgotten that?”</p>
<p>Sansa giggles into her glass, hating the way she both sounds and feels like an infatuated schoolgirl. “It’s not one of my finest quotes, I’ll give you that much.”</p>
<p>“So your favourite movie is…”</p>
<p>“Notting Hill. Hugh Grant wearing glasses is a—”</p>
<p>“Sexual revelation. I remember it now.” Theon’s finger trails the rim of his glass, the movement absent and deliberate all at once, but it’s hypnotic enough that Sansa’s barely following the path of the conversation anymore. She wants him to trace that pattern on her thigh. She wants him to be anyone other than who he is, which is her roommate <em>and</em> her brother’s best friend. A one-two punch in the relm of <em>Romantically Off Limits.</em>. “I’ve been told I look a bit like Hugh Grant, you know.”</p>
<p>“Told by who, exactly? Your mum?”</p>
<p>“Alannys has <em>exceptional</em> taste, thank you very much.”</p>
<p>(And that’s the gist of their nights out, really.</p>
<p>They talk about stupid things. They talk about things that don’t mean anything at all, things that would normally numb Sansa’s brain and be an insult to her intellectual capacity if they came from literally anyone else.</p>
<p>Their conversations never really go anywhere at all. They’re not moving towards anything—Sansa’s used to a discussion having an endpoint, something that either party is heading towards for one reason or another, but with Theon she just…talks. And he talks, and sometimes they take five steps backwards </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Robb goes on another date, and then another, and then he’s almost never home at all.</p>
<p>“I want to know what she’s like,” Sansa says.</p>
<p>“Awfully presumptuous of you to assume that it’s a <em>she</em>.”</p>
<p>“He’s referred to her as a <em>her</em> multiple times, Theon.”</p>
<p>It’s become a routine: every Friday they go to The Kraken’s Den, a booth in the corner with a beer and a lemon drop set aside for whenever they’re able to make it in, and while they take every precaution possible not to repeat the events of that first week—they sit six feet apart, their hands never touch, they invite out literally anyone else who’s able to make it—there seems to always be a lingering sensation of <em>almost</em> that Sansa can’t quite seem to shake. </p>
<p>It’s not as though she has feelings for him. It’s just that sometimes she thinks about reaching over and brushing the hair out of his eyes, and the fact that it takes actually effort to stop herself from doing so is more than a little bit disturbing.</p>
<p>They’re with Jon and Ygritte, out on what very definitively is <em>not</em> a double date during her fifth week living with the boys, and when Theon’s knee brushes against her underneath the table Sansa makes a point to not flinch away—because it’s normal, because if she tries to make them touching into anything more than what it is then she might actually start to convince herself that that’s the case.</p>
<p>“Sansa’s a way better roommate than you ever were, Snow,” Theon says, and even though she knows he’s just saying that as a means of getting a rise out of Jon she feels a rush of pride. “Does he still read a Plath poem out loud every morning, Yg? I swear to fuck, if he hadn’t finally got the balls to move in with you I would have kicked him out myself.”</p>
<p>“He does,” Ygritte replies, looking far too pleased as she leans in to peck her boyfriend on the cheek, “but I’m pretty good at shutting him up.”</p>
<p>“<em>Adorable,</em>” Sansa coos, right at the same time Theon shouts, “<em>Fuck</em>, gross!”, and she has to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing out loud when he turns to look at her with an expression of pure betrayal.</p>
<p>It’s the look on Jon’s face that bothers her the most, though.</p>
<p>He looks as if he knows something, eyes flickering back and forth from Sansa to Theon as if there’s some scandalous secret between the two of them (which, okay, there <em>is</em>, but they’ve been very good at moving past that), and the main reason Sansa hates it so much is because Jon usually doesn’t know anything at all.</p>
<p>So when he’s looking at them like this, like there’s something so obvious right in front of her face that she’s completely missing out on, she finishes off what’s left of her drink and signals Yara for another one.</p>
<p>“Someday you’ll be in love with someone other than yourself, Greyjoy,” Jon says, with a little smile that’s a bit too pleased and a glimmer in his dark eyes that sort of makes Sansa want to vomit, “and you’ll feel like such a fucking idiot about it that you’ll finally have to bite your tongue.” </p>
<p>Theon looks at him—really looks, more serious than Sansa ever seen him look before—and there seems to be some sort of unspoken conversation, a slight nod, an acknowledgement of something that she can’t even begin to question, before her roommate breaks into a grin and shrugs. It’s weird, <em>really</em> weird, but the drink is going to Sansa’s head and she doesn’t question it for longer than she feels as though she has to. Thinking too much is just going to give her a headache.</p>
<p>“Jokes on you, Snow,” Theon replies, breaking every one of their unspoken rules and slinging his arm across Sansa’s shoulder. “I feel like a fucking idiot every day of my life.”</p>
<p>They laugh, and the tension lifts, and it’s over.</p>
<p>And she’s moving forward, she’s sure of it, but Sansa still can’t shake the feeling that something is creeping up behind her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<h2>Please leave a message after the tone.</h2>
<p>
  <em>Hi Mum, it’s Sansa.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I know…I know I haven’t been around much, since I got home and everything. And I’m sorry about that, but it’s just—it hasn’t really seemed like I was welcome? Obviously I know that I am, but every time I come over  we end up fighting, and I have this horrible feeling that you’ve just. I don’t know. It feels like you’ve been practicing the fight, you know? Like you’ve been sitting around, waiting for me to come over so you can yell at me about all the shit that I’ve done that’s disappointed you.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>And I want you to know that I’m sorry. I’m not sorry that I left—I really needed to do that. But I’m sorry if it ever felt as though I don’t love you guys, or like I just kind of abandoned you without thinking twice. It was the hardest thing I ever did, Mom. It fucking sucked, and I felt like such an asshole about it because I love you and Dad more than anything in the world. I like, cried myself to sleep every night that first month away. It was super fucking embarrassing. My neighbours probably thought I was insane.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I just…I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you guys, Mum. I left because—this is really awkward. I left because I didn’t love myself, okay? I was so, so unhappy, and I knew that nothing would ever change if I didn’t force myself to change things. I had to do it. I don’t…I don’t know what would have happened if I didn’t.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Sorry. I love you.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Please don’t be mad at me for how many times I said ‘fucking’ during that message. And don’t be mad at me for saying it again.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The shop is—it’s coming along really well, actually.</p>
<p>It is.</p>
<p>(It <em>really</em> is.)</p>
<p>Margaery’s funds certainly don’t hurt. Neither does her fame, her ability to whip up a rumour out of absolutely nothing. By the end of Sansa’s second month in Winterfell she hears people in the neighbourhood whispering about the new tattoo shop that’s opening up on the corner.</p>
<p>She hears someone in line at Starbucks say that Daenerys Targaryen is going to be there getting a tattoo on opening day, and Sansa nearly corrects them before realizing that a) allowing that rumor to spread is exceptionally good publicity, and b) knowing Margaery, that very well could be true.</p>
<p>But Margie hasn’t been around as much as she should have been—she’s been out lately, meeting with an investor that she says, ‘<em>really has potential, darling</em>,’ although the way that she waggles her eyebrows when she speaks makes Sansa think that his money or interest in their business isn’t exactly the potential that Margaery has in mind. She’s happy for her friend, she really is, but it also means that most of the business decisions are placed into Sansa’s hand.</p>
<p>They’re on track to open in a handful of months.</p>
<p>Sansa paints the walls red and Arya swings by on her lunch breaks, filling the work days with menial chatter about her and Gendry’s new favourite show (Westworld, until it’s Fleabag) and whatever fancy kind of beer the brewery she works at is coming down the pipeline (snickerdoodle pumpkin ale for fall, which Sansa’s pretty sure was tailor made with her own interests in mind).</p>
<p>She still hasn’t heard from her mum, but that’s okay, she thinks. Theon had sat by her side as she recorded the message, and when she hung up he’d patted her thigh and said, “<em>Good job, kid,</em>” which was somehow condescending and endearing all at once.</p>
<p>And speaking of Theon—</p>
<p>“Robb says Greyjoy’s been weird,” Arya says one day, picking absently at her nailbeds in a way that makes Sansa a bit sick. “Says he thinks he has a girlfriend. You know anything about that?”</p>
<p>Sansa schools her features into a flat line.</p>
<p>“Theon? With a <em>girlfriend</em>?” She snorts, although it sounds a bit forced. “He probably just caught him with his blowup doll again.”</p>
<p>Arya doesn’t say anything in response. She just hums.</p>
<p>They don’t talk about it again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<h2>@theon_ironborn</h2>
<p><strong>greyjoy.</strong><br/>nudes by request only.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Six months after Sansa moves into the apartment, the shop opens.</p>
<p>She and Margaery clearly have different ideas on what an opening celebration will look like. Sansa thinks classy canapes and one glass of champagne per guest; Margaery decides on an open bar and a DJ, cramming as many people as they can into the open-plan shop and insisting on doing a body shot off of Robb’s abdomen like they’re at a fraternity party.</p>
<p>(Which—okay, Sansa’s not really sure how she didn’t see that relationship coming. The two of them hadn’t exactly been subtle about it.</p>
<p>That doesn’t make it any less of a shock when she walks in on them making out on one of the waiting room couches two weeks before opening, though.)</p>
<p>Her parents arrive with a bouquet of flowers to display on the front desk, and Catelyn places her hand on Sansa’s arm as her father rushes off to get a vase. The moment should be tense, she knows, but it’s undercut by the sound of George Michael drifting from the speakers in the background and by the sight of Theon just over her mum’s shoulder, telling a story, throwing his hands in the air.</p>
<p>“We are so proud of you, Sansa,” her mum says, and the sentence is only seven words but it seems to carry seven years worth of weight along with it. “Your father and I have always been so, <em>so</em> proud of you.” </p>
<p>It’s not enough. Nowhere near enough, really, but it’s better than nothing.</p>
<p>“I know, Mum.”</p>
<p>She (mostly) means it.</p>
<p>The conversation is cut short by Margaery standing atop one of the chairs, not wobbling once in her skyscraper-high heels. She looks so beautiful, and she looks so proud, and for a second Sansa completely forgets that this woman isn’t her superior, or her boss, or her competition—Margaery is her partner. She’s her <em>equal</em>. It’s as though she’s simply blinked and found herself catapulted fifty feet forwards. For the first time in her life, she’s ahead.</p>
<p>“At the risk of sounding horribly cliché,” Margie says, reaching down to squeeze Sansa’s hand, “there are a few people here tonight who we’d like to thank.”</p>
<p>She finds Theon’s gaze in the crowd. It’s not difficult to do; he’s the only person who’s staring straight at her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At ten fifty-five, Sansa slips out back to finish her drink in the alley.</p>
<p>She’s enjoying the celebration, of course. Everyone is drunk, everyone is enthused, and while her parents left half an hour earlier they’d given her a hug and a kiss on each cheek and she’d really, <em>properly</em> felt as though they realized that she’d finally found where she belonged.</p>
<p>It’s at least thirty seconds before she realizes that Theon has followed her outside, a slight movement in her peripheral vision causing her to jump and spill white wine down the front of her dress. If she were seven years younger and significantly more sober this would be nothing short of a catastrophe, but as she stares down at the spreading dark patch on her blue silk dress it just feels fitting. Like there wasn’t really any other way the night could go.</p>
<p>“Very smooth,” Theon says, laughing just a bit to himself as if that wasn’t completely his fault. “Doing alright there, Stark? Last I checked there was a party going on in the other room, and you’re sort of the star.”</p>
<p>“Two kids,” Sansa replies.</p>
<p>He blinks.</p>
<p>She sighs.</p>
<p>“Two kids by twenty-six. That was the plan—which, I know, in retrospect is completely insane. I just…I mean, I had it all mapped out, Theon. I’d have two kids and I’d be married and in love, owning my own house, successful in every possible sense of the word.”</p>
<p>“And you don’t think you’re successful? You’re opening a business at twenty-five, Sansa. That’s incredible.”</p>
<p>“I’m single and living in the spare bedroom of a flat that I share with my brother and his best friend.” There’s a flash of hurt on Theon’s face, a spark of guilt in the pit of her stomach, but Sansa shoves it aside. Facts are facts, after all. “I don’t mean it like that.”</p>
<p>“No, I know.”</p>
<p>“I <em>don’t</em>.”</p>
<p>“I know, Sans.” He sounds like he really does know but somehow that only serves to make her feel worse. “But it’s not the fucking Fifties. Women don’t need a house and two kids to for their lives to be worth something.”</p>
<p>She laughs, the sound a little bit unwilling, and the look on his face seems like he’s counting it as a victory. “Well then. Theon Greyjoy, feminist. Who’d’ve thought?”</p>
<p>“Countless <em>very</em> satisfied women, thank you very much.”</p>
<p>“I’m not like I was when I was twelve, you know? I <em>know</em> romance isn’t the end of the world. I just thought…”</p>
<p>“You thought?” he prompts, and she hates him a little bit for it.</p>
<p>“I thought…I don’t know.” Her shoulders sag. She reaches for the elastic on her wrist, ratty and black, and ties her hair up on top of her head and out of her face so she can look at him properly. Really look, look at the small twitch of his nose and the redness at the tips of his ears, the single brown freckle in the middle of his left iris. All these details, firmly committed to memory and yet somehow still feeling so new. “It’s not that I need someone to want me. I just thought that someone <em>would</em> by now.”</p>
<p>It sounds desperate. It sounds needy. It sounds like someone that Sansa hates, someone she’s sworn for the past seven years that she’s never going to be again—one step forward and fifteen back, straight into a little girl desperate for the sort of attention she’s never going to receive.</p>
<p>Through the walls she can hear the muffled sounds of someone cheering, of glass clinking, of laughter and music. A song is playing, and it’s one that she thinks she might like even though she can’t quite put a name to the tune.</p>
<p>Theon kisses her, and she forgets to try.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He knocks on her door at three thirty-eight in the morning, but he doesn’t wait for a response before stepping inside.</p>
<p>“<em>Jesus</em>, Theon. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of knocking?”</p>
<p>“Nah. Knew you were going to let me in anyways.”</p>
<p>Obviously he’s right, but she’s tired and anxious, still a little bit tipsy, so Sansa doesn’t think he needs to know that. “You’re such an asshole. I could have been naked.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, exactly. And I <em>definitely</em> would have come in then.”</p>
<p>The lights are still out and she can’t see his face, not fully, but she knows exactly how he would look if she could—he’d be smiling, a little more slanted to the right than the left, and it would reach all the way up to his eyes. There’d be a bit of a blush on his cheeks, even though he’d deny it profusely if you ever dared to point it out.</p>
<p>If she could see him she would see <em>him</em>, Theon Greyjoy. Someone who wants her.</p>
<p>“Think Robb and Margaery finally fell asleep?”</p>
<p>And maybe it’s the drinks, or the thrumming of her heartbeat in her ears, or the warmth in her voice; it could be the way that he’d kissed her earlier that evening, desperate and earnest. It could be how he’d cradled her cheeks afterwards, so fucking delicate, and how he’d kissed a spot right under her ear and whispered, “<em>You know, I could be someone</em>,” and how he hadn’t even flinched when she’d smacked his arm, burying his face into the crook of her neck as he laughed against her shoulder.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s all of that, or maybe it’s something else entirely. Sansa’s not sure, at least not right now, but she’s tired of trying to figure it out.</p>
<p>“Probably.” She grins and something tells her that he can still see it, even in the dark. “Want to see how loud we can get before they wake up?”</p>
<p>He laughs.</p>
<p>She takes a step forward.</p>
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